East-Central Europe is a prime example of a region
shaped by ethnic, religious and linguistic diversity. It has also witnessed
some of the most dramatic social and political upheavals in 20th century
history, with results that remain acutely relevant.

This project uses an experimental definition of the
term ‘sub-cultures’
to advance research into the formation, definition and contestation of ‘cultural
identity’ in the region – a subject of continued import in the Humanities
and political discussion alike.

In short: we define ‘sub-cultures’ not in traditional terms
as (for instance) subaltern or youth groups, but as groups with wider, hybrid
forms of cultural self-expression (linguistic, religious, other practices) and
multiple or simultaneous belonging. As such, they cross over and integrate
‘majority’, ‘minority’ cultures and ‘ethnic groups’.

We will explore this definition through a series of
project-specific, parallel and contrastive case studies spanning 1900-present;
plus a number of international collaborations via seminars, workshops,
conferences and other publications (including the East- and East-Central
European Seminar: programme here).
Our aim is to offer a valuable new way of understanding simultaneous forms of
identification in the region, with relevance within and beyond academic
research.

This website will form a portal for our findings and
events; anyone interested in collaborating or knowing more is welcome to get in
touch and join our mailing list in due course.

2.What are the processes of cultural and linguistic interaction within and
outside these groups, i.e. between each individual group and the dominant
culture; as well as the host state; inside individual groups; and between
different minorities?

3.What is the role of history, memory, imagination and
myth in the formation of ethnically multi-layered identity?

4.What is the significance of language in shaping such
identities?

5.What types of multi-layered identification can be
established across different ECE cities and periods, and can these be framed
using ‘subcultures as integrative forces’?

Dr
Fellerer, a linguist, will study multi-layered
linguistic identities among L’viv’s Greek-Catholic
‘Ukrainians’ around 1900: how they engaged in complex communicative networks, partly in
Ukrainian, partly in the culturally dominant Polish, and partly in the
Monarchy's quasi-state language, German.
The domain studied will be Ukrainian secondary schools, with sources such as
correspondence with the regional school board, curricula, yearbooks and
directors’ reports. He will then explore equally complex linguistic identities
among Łódź’s Polish-Jewish-German workforce
under Russian occupation around 1900. The focus will be on factory and early labour movement records from the textile industry held in
the State Archive in Lódź, e.g. workers’
committee meetings, complaint proceedings with patrons, records of industrial
actions. The material will be submitted to historical sociolinguistic study,
asking what patterns of using different languages can tell us about
multilingual identity.

2.
MYTH AND MEMORY: JEWS AND GERMANS, INTERWAR ROMANIA

Dr
Turda, a historian, will explore and compare Jewish
and German subcultural identities in the cities of Cluj and Timişoara during
the interwar period: how these communities related and interacted with the
Romanian nation building project. Specifically, the CI will contrast the manner
in which these German and Jewish subcultures employed memory and myth to
diagnose a perceived sense of alienation; and how their sense of identity was
shaped by the degree of integration and assimilation into their new host
nation-state. Core source material will include hitherto new archival material
held at the National Archives in Cluj and Timişoara.

3.
HISTORICAL DISCOURSES: COMMUNIST SILESIA

The
project’s fully-funded D.Phil. (Ph.D.) student will investigate historical
narratives about fused cultural identities in Communist Wroclaw of Lower
Silesia (1956-1980). The post-Stalinist ideological context, less monolithic
than often assumed, produced a variety of identity-building discourses. These
were premised on Silesia’s strong sense of regional separateness and its
complicated, nationally highly charged Polish-German-Czech legacy

4.
DISCURISIVE CONSTRUCTIONS: L’VIV AND WROCLAW to present

Dr
Pyrah, a cultural historian, will investigate Polish
and German subcultural identities in now-Ukrainian L’viv and now-Polish Wrocław
respectively, using historical and discourse analysis. In both cities these
groups were the culturally and politically dominant majorities before 1945. A
key hypothesis will be that today they exist in the interstices of local and
national identity building projects and resist full assimilation into either.
Questions under scrutiny include: how these groups are framed by civic and
national policies; how they market their own identities locally and within
their ‘home’ national contexts (using civic initiatives or newspapers). Source
material will be drawn from interviews, to include local elites; local
government archival records on minority policy; minority press; websites; records of cultural
initiatives, e.g. festivals.

5. A WIDER COLLABORATIVE
PROGRAMME

In addition,
collaborative workshops, international conferences, and seminars (plus
publications and podcasting)